Table of Contents

Survey of Consumer Finances, 1955 (ICPSR 3600)

Principal Investigator(s):Economic Behavior Program. Survey Research Center. University of Michigan

Summary:

This data collection is one in a series of financial
surveys of consumers conducted annually since 1946. In a nationally
representative sample, the head of each spending unit (usually the
husband, the main earner, or the owner of the home) was
interviewed. The basic unit of reference in the study was the spending
unit, but some family data are also available. The questions in the
1955 survey covered the respondent's attitudes toward national
economic conditions and price activity, as well as the respondent's own
financial situ... (more info)

This data collection is one in a series of financial
surveys of consumers conducted annually since 1946. In a nationally
representative sample, the head of each spending unit (usually the
husband, the main earner, or the owner of the home) was
interviewed. The basic unit of reference in the study was the spending
unit, but some family data are also available. The questions in the
1955 survey covered the respondent's attitudes toward national
economic conditions and price activity, as well as the respondent's own
financial situation. Other questions examined the spending unit head's
occupation, and the nature and amount of the spending unit's income,
debts, liquid assets, changes in liquid assets, savings, and actual
and expected purchases of cars and other major durables. In addition,
the survey explored in detail the subject of housing, e.g., previous
and present home ownership, value of respondent's dwelling,
satisfaction with home and space, expected duration of tenure there,
mortgage information, budgeting, handling of family finances, use of
installment plans, and changes in liquid assets. Personal data include
number of people in the spending unit, age, sex, and education of the
head, and the race and sex of the respondent.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

Economic Behavior Program, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan. SURVEY OF CONSUMER FINANCES, 1955. Conducted by University of Michigan, Survey Research Center. ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1999. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03600.v1

(1) Most of the data in the study pertain to a
spending unit. For some variables, information from related spending
units was combined to provide data on a family basis. The user should
refer to the editing instructions and worksheets included with the
codebook to ascertain the procedures followed in these
computations. (2) The majority of the variables in the study represent
information obtained through direct questioning of the
respondent. Some variables, however, are the result of computations
done for each interview, e.g., amount saved, total indebtedness,
estimated income taxes, and the relation of these amounts to
income. (3) In some instances, where important information was
missing, assigned values were given. The assigned values were based on
other known characteristics of the spending unit and occur only in a
small proportion of the cases. Those variables containing assigned
information are preceded by a lead variable, indicating for each case
whether the value in the following variable is assigned or not. (4)
The codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF)
file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated
and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe
Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat
Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Sample:
The respondents interviewed were drawn from a national
sample of dwelling units. The dwelling units falling in the sample
were chosen by area probability sampling to represent the United
States population.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: